"Longlisted for the Art and Christianity Book Award" "Longlisted for the Pickstone Prize, British Society for the History of Science" "Central to The Deformation is the question of how religious elites wielded anamorphosis as a means of gatekeeping the divine. That is precisely what makes Bergers argument fresh. . . . [ The] book is lavishly illustrated, with crisp, thoughtfully arranged images, and that matters more than you might think, given how closely she analyzes the layouts of the treatises she studies. . . . Bergers book compels you to see differently . . . it makes a historical moment snap into focus, more faceted, more sharply edged than it looked from a distancehistory rendered newly legible through the same uncanny recalibration that anamorphosis demands."---Emanuele Lugli, Los Angeles Review of Books "By recovering how the sensation of incomprehensibility could be a positive aesthetic experience, Berger helps us better understand what an architect like Borromini was trying to achieve. And in doing this she loses nothing of the sense of wonder that was so clearly delighted in by the artists and patrons she studies."---William Aslet, Apollo "A startlingly interesting book that is at once surprising, informative, and at the same time, quite entertaining. . . . [ H]ighly recommended."---Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Catholic Books Review "Susanna Berger has written an important book that gives essential insight into late Renaissance and Baroque religious art and architecture. It is a commonplace that illusionism as a variant of perspective enters the scene in the early seventeenth century, but we have had, until now, no convincing explanation of why or of its meaning. . . . Bergers study of Italian and French artists and architects practicing in seventeenth-century Italy should become required reading in every course on early modern art."---Marcia Hall, The Catholic Historical Review "Bergers book illustrates how deformations were the fruit of a profoundly learned creative climate and the ways in which the artworks surveyed were invested with layers of meaning are often skillfully revealed. The key achievement of the volume lies in its interdisciplinary sweep which incorporates insights from elds including optics, the natural sciences and philosophy to explain the genesis and meaning of works of art that confound our visual expectations. Deeply intellectual. . . . [ and] elegantly produced."---Marie-Louise Lillywhite, Journal of Religious History
